Illustration + Nature Sketching
I’m always experimenting and trying out new mixes with my watercolors. I do have a few favorites right now that’d I’d like to show today. Mixing watercolor is always an exciting thing, you never quite know what the result will be, and there are differences even when using the same pigments by different manufacturers. I …
Spring is in full bloom over here now and I’ve taken the opportunity and created a new class around nature journaling in spring! We’ll go for a hike together and take a look at different creative techniques for nature journaling now that nature is waking up again and you can see all kinds of plants, …
Drawing and painting in a sketchbook on a daily basis is a deeply relaxing, meditative thing to do, and it builds creativity and imagination. My art practice changed a lot when I truly embraced my sketchbook for what it was and started nature journaling, my art got more interesting as a result. I find myself …
Another month has passed and it’s my time to look at what happened in my nature journal in that time. Spring is finally here and everything is coming to life in an amazing speed. There is so much fresh green growing everywhere suddenly, after the long winter months. Spring flowers appear in soft colors and …
There are lots of ways to keep a nature journal, some prefer pencil only while others like using colored pencils or ink. I keep coming back to watercolors. This might be because I’ve been painting in watercolor for a few years now, but even apart from that I find that it is a wonderfully versatile …
Do you sometimes wish you could just watch the clouds go by for an hour while not doing anything else? Now you can, at least almost! In my new course, we’ll take a relaxing time out and watch the sky and the passing clouds. And then we’ll take out our watercolors and paint them! In …
Study Bird Anatomy If you want to draw a convincing bird, you need to understand what lies beneath the surface. When you draw something, you simplify it, and without knowing what you see, you can’t simplify it.Your drawings will become much better when they’re based on knowledge and not just on how something appears to …
I’m happy to announce that I’ll be part of an inspiring online workshop series coming up later this month. The event is called Sketchbook Revival (hosted by the wonderful Karen Abend), it’ll be running between April 22 through May 4 2019, and the best part about it is that it’s FREE! The sessions will be …
It’s time for reflecting another month of nature journaling. March is the time of the year around here where you can feel that nature is awakening slowly from its winter hibernation. The first few leaves and blossoms are coming out, and the birds are getting active with courtship, mating and nest building. For me, March …
This is the palette I’m currently using for my sketchbook work and when I’m out in the field. When I work in my studio, I like to keep a bigger palette around just in case, but most of the time I end up using this one, too. I also have a Youtube video in which …
A big part of my daily journaling is centered about birds, and I draw them almost every day. I know that a lot of people think (as did I when I first started out) that birds are hard to draw, because they move around, fly away, and have all these feathers and weird movements.They are …
Great tits are very common and very agile birds that you can see a lot at the bird feeder in winter. They are the biggest of the Paridae family in Europe. The have a lovely black and yellow plumage. In this video I share my entire process for painting one of these cute little birds …
February was another month where I focused on drawing birds, there’s not much happening here aside from that and the last breaths of winter. We ventured out for a few small trips however, one of them to the Hoher Meißner region south of where we live, and this was a very inspiring day for me. …
Do you want to know a secret? I used to be afraid of sketchbooks. I was a perfectionist, and was afraid of making mistakes in my sketchbook, which would of course be ruined by a bad drawing. I preferred to work on loose paper. I’m sure many of you know this feeling..it keeps us from …
The fieldfare is a common bird here in winter, and it’s a delight to paint. In this video I share my entire process for painting a bird with a lot of detail. How to paint a realistic bird in watercolor Click on the video to start the tutorial. You can slow down the video (in …